


Yours, Orpheus

by Cluegirl



Series: Counting Bodies Like Sheep [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, Post DW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius Malfoy leaves a letter for Severus Snape to find after the dust has settled.  (Sequel to <i>Pet</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yours, Orpheus

Dear Severus,

I watched him kill you.

Did you know I was there? Did you feel my gaze, hear me telling you to curse him and flee? Whispering lighter than moths' or lover's wings that you would, like Icarus, fall if you let him lure you, lull you, gull you close again?

But I could see your eyes, clever Raven, and I think you knew the abyss was reaching out, whispering your name. Was that why you did not so much as raise your wand to defend that life I'd have spent a hundred others to protect, once upon a very different time? We both watched, helpless and unmaged as he broke you, my Raven, with no more care than when he broke my wand. How odd that only then did I realize what we had become – what he who marked us both and called us once 'worthy' had done with our worth. He savaged our wings, whored our heritage, enslaved us, unmade us, then spurned us to the mud -- your life, my line, a thousand Princes and proud Malfoys crumpled and bleeding in the dust of his footprints, and he never once looked back.

How odd that it was only then I knew I must betray him.

How odd to know only then that I had been hoarding the means to do it for months, even years before this pure, perfect, ringing instant of epiphany. A Unicorn's bezoar, bought at great cost from the Magical Creatures Control Office in Draco's first year at school; a scraping of basilisk's venom, taken from the burned edge of a book of which I once had the care; phoenix ash, which _will_ cling to one's cloak when visiting a doddering Headmaster; a silver hand, linked through primal correspondence to its maker, and abandoned unnoticed with its bearer; a shed serpent skin of monstrous length, and diamond pattern; the recipe for a perfect Slytherin ending.

The convergence had lacked only your depthless stare to snap it into focus. You were still breathing when I went for them – I'd kept the lot close, though I hadn't realized just why. I counted on you to keep on living until I could return, but I'd forgot how wretchedly inconvenient you've always prided yourself on being.

You, however, have likely forgot how I always do get my way in the end.

The Malfoy line will not end, Severus; not because that halfblooded bastard sees no immediate use for me, and not because he had the idiocy to murder you before you gave me the chance to settle the life debt between us. Phoenix ash, Severus, Unicorn's bezoar. I had meant to put them to other uses, but as I have said, I will have my way. The Malfoys will carry on, and so will you.

When you wake, I expect it will all be over. Riddle will be dead and we will be alive.

You needn't seek me out to say thank you. I'll know you are grateful.

Lucius.


End file.
